In the village of Sableuse, the local manor has been bought out by a nouveau riche, Emile Cousinet. When his wife Lisette, a former music hall actress, flees to Paris with young Pierre de Sableuse, Cousinet asks Father Pellegrin, the village vicar, to bring the lost sheep back home.
The underage Rosemarie is still too young to run her inherited farm by herself; but she's more than aware that her foster father and the farm's administrator, the farmer Schlieker, is constantly skimming from the farm's finances to line his own pocket.
Herr Werther, a new magistrate to the Grand Duchy of Walheim who is a violinist and poet, seems to have fate on his side as he meets and pursues a beautiful local woman, Charlotte.